‘The casino. Your reputation,’ I say honestly. ‘Everything about you is so threatening to me. I think even before I met you I knew that you were someone who could threaten the very safe walls I’ve built around my life.’
‘Is that what I’m doing?’
Yes. Undoubtedly. But, of course, it’s not really. After this, I have to go back to Marlsdoven, to my perfectly planned life, to the man I’ll one day marry, to the expectations I’ve always borne and which have weighed me down since my parents’ deaths. As for Santiago, he doesn’t want to shake the walls of my life. This is just meaningless for him. A fling, nothing more.
He moves his finger to the tip of my nose, running it over the ski-jump tip.
‘At that first meeting, you were full of fire,’ he says, and I blush, remembering the way we’d sparked off each other.
‘You were hardly Mr Congeniality yourself.’
‘I never am.’ He brushes as
ide my remark. ‘But I had expected you to be calm and agreeable. I expected you to be desperate for me to sign the contract, delighted to have the land disposed of and a project like the casino undertaken. I did not anticipate, for one minute, that you would so strenuously object.’
There’s something in his eyes that makes me pause, frowning. ‘And that bothers you? You’re disappointed?’
His features tighten. He’s doing it again—looking for ways to avoid answering me.
I sigh. ‘Don’t worry. Forget I asked.’
He presses a finger to my lips. ‘I’m used to winning. I ordinarily take great pleasure in eviscerating anyone who gets in my way.’ His accent is thick, his words raw, and my nerves tingle at the picture he paints. ‘I did not expect your opposition but, once I had it...’
I wait. For some reason with breath held. ‘Yes?’
But he shakes his head, not finishing the thought. I don’t know if he needs to. I can join the dots.
I’m his adversary in business right now, but he doesn’t want to eviscerate me. He’s holding back on the casino because he doesn’t want to see me upset.
It’s hardy a declaration of anything beyond basic courtesy—we are, after all, sleeping together—but it warms me from the inside out, regardless.
‘You’re different to what I expected,’ he finishes with a too-casual shrug.
‘Do you ever get lonely?’ The question erupts before I can stop it, and only as I speak the words do I realise it’s been humming inside me since we had the conversation about his parents.
‘No.’
I’m glad he doesn’t remind me of how busy is his social life—and by social life I mean sex life. Besides, I’m sure he’s lying.
‘Santiago...’ I sigh, pressing a hand to his chest. ‘You keep pushing me away. Is it so hard for you to be honest with me?’
‘How am I not being honest?’
‘Well, is there anyone in your life? Anyone who you let care about you? Anyone you care about?’
His eyes show fierce rejection of even the idea. ‘My business is my life. It’s all I need, querida.’
He sounds so certain, so confident on this score, that for a moment I wonder if I’m wrong. Perhaps my own loneliness is slanting my perception of his life. After all, I’m used to keeping almost everyone at arm’s length. Claudia is probably the closest thing I have to a friend, and she works for me. Maybe I’m projecting my own feelings onto him.
Maybe I want him to tell me he is lonely, because in admitting that he’d be conceding he wants to make a change. And then what? Even if he were to admit he wants more in his life, it’s not with me—it can’t be. My own obligations prohibit that. He kisses me, and I’m glad, because the power of his kiss makes thinking almost impossible. Almost, but not quite. As he brings his body over mine, I’m acutely aware of an ache somewhere in the region of my heart.
‘I love sleeping with you,’ he growls in my ear, and the words send little sparks through my body. I’m flattered but afraid because, while I love sleeping with him too, there’s so much more to it, and I know I can never admit that—I know he’ll never feel it.
CHAPTER NINE
I’m in trouble.
I SMILE AS I send the text message, fully aware I shouldn’t be so flippant. It’s quite clear from the looks on my security agents’ faces that they’d been about to mount an armed search for me. My disappearance was highly out of character, so I can understand their concern, but I’m not even a little sorry for it.